Archive for November 27, 2009

RB | November 27, 2009
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New Network Monitoring Tool

network-lights-iconThere now appears to be a reason for the three LEDs on your keyboard, you know number lock, caps lock, and scroll lock.

Network Lights, an app by IT Samples resurrects these dinosaurs from a long ago era and makes them blink in time with outgoing and incoming network packets on your PC’s network interface. To recover some functionality of these throw-backs just download, extract, and run the executable and you’ll network-lightsCPsee a new system tray icon to customize program settings. It does not seem to work real well on notebooks but it does apparently work on Win7.

This utility is released as freeware and is provided by the publisher “AS IS” without any warranty and only you will be liable for any special, incidental, consequential or indirect damages due to loss of data or any other reason. If you encounter a problem while running this utility or you have any suggestions, comments, you can send a message to support (at) itsamples.com.

Category: Networking | Tags: ,
RB | November 23, 2009
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Smoking Voids Mac Warranty

apple Apple has declared that smoking is bad for your Mac. The Consumerist reports, several Mac owners service requests have been declined by Apple because of the users cigarette habit.

According to the Consumerist reports  those filing complaints with the Consumerist say Apple claims that the PCs have been exposed to second-hand smoke and are potentially contaminated with known carcinogens.

The ChannelInsider points out that smoking is not listed as one of the things that could void a Mac standard or extended warranty.  The Mac owners were told by their service agents that nicotine and carbon monoxide are known cancer-causing agents by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, making it a federal case.

smokerVoiding warranties isn’t uncommon for acts that are intentional or beyond reasonable accidents. But contamination with cigarette residue is a new justification.  The question is whether other solution providers feel threatened by machines owned or used by smokers? Should this be enough to void a service warranty? Or is this just a smoke screen to weed out some contractual obligations?

Category: Business |
RB | November 20, 2009
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16x Increase in Malware Threats

malwareThe last six months have seen a gradual decrease in the amount of SPAM hitting my account. An average of  44.3 SPAM messages per day (SM/D) were blocked by the SPAM filter for my account in October.

AvgSpam09

This is a decline in SM/D from a high of 77.5 in May. This is also below the year to date SM/D of 54.7. While the overall SM/D trend may be declining another trend is developing that is more dangerous. Since August 2009, the amount of SPAM containing malware has increased dramatically. For the first six months of 2009, there were only 24 SPAM messages that contained malware. This represents .11 malware laden messages per day.  Since August 1st there have been 188 SPAM messages containing malware to date. This equates to 1.8 SPAM messages with a malware payload per day. This represents a 16X increase in malware trying to attack my PC daily. The most common malware was the Bredo family of Trojans, followed by the Kryptik Trojans and then various Fake Alert Trojans.

lamwaretypes

Category: Malware, Security | Tags: , ,
RB | November 14, 2009
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Tech Still Laying Off

recessionIt has been just over a year since Wall $treet and the Bankers lead the global economy to the edge of collapse. Thanks to Obama-money our money Wall $treet and the Bankers are making million dollar bonus’s again, so all must be right in the economy right?

According to my information, nearly 550,000 tech related jobs have been eliminated since October 2008. January 2009 saw almost 164,000 jobs eliminated by the biggest names in tech. Ericsson. Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Sprint-Nextel all eliminated 5,000 or more jobs in January 2009. While this is old news, unless you are still trying to live through one of these “right-sizing” it is also important because we are coming back around to the lay-off season.

glayoffs

This year’s lay-off season is trending upward after several months of decline. From a record high in January tech layoffs declined to a modest 4,336 layoffs in June 2009. Since reaching that bottom the tech layoff rate has increased to levels not seen since May 2009. August 2009 had almost 5,000 layoffs. The number of layoffs in September doubled to 10,246. The trend has been increasing since with 12,704 layoffs in October and in the first half of November, there have been already been 12,749 layoffs. Some opf the same firms that had “resource reduction actions” in January hade laid off more people in November, including Ericsson (700), Microsoft (800) and Sprint-Nextel (2,500).

lastq

It appears to me that despite Wall $treet bonus’s. the rest of us are still in for at leat 12 more months of questionable job prospects

Category: Business, Recession | Tags: , , , ,
RB | November 11, 2009
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Thanks

vetsday09

Category: Security | Tags:
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